You just don’t understand.
So, let me try to help you…
That first sentence has
slipped though my lips more times than I can count. The second sentence usually
does not; mostly because after the original sentence, I am trying to hold back
tears and a sense of failure. So let me try to explain, in what way that I can…
The word “understand” means
this: to be thoroughly familiar with;
grasp the idea of; grasp the importance of. I don’t think that anyone can fully understand
something unless they’ve a) been through the situation, or b) discuss the “thing”
in depth and detail with a living, breathing person. In application to my
situation, you cannot understand the panic, guilt, and sorrow that accompany a
car wreck victim unless you are one, or you talk to one for more than 15
minutes about the event.
Here are the things that I think you need to
know if I am riding with you:
- 1) PTSD is real and it’s real scary: When it comes to reactions to things in the car, I’m
not in control of how my body reacts. I
cannot “calm down” no matter how forcefully, or how many times, you say it. Trust
me, you DO NOT want to go through 5 panic attacks in one car ride. It’s not
pleasant. I don’t want to feel like I’m suffocating, that I’m going to pass
out; I like oxygen, truly.
- 2) When I close my eyes, it’s usually because something I
just saw reminded me of what I saw .5 seconds before my car was obliterated (not
because I want to take a nap). Whether it is the color of a vehicle, the
make/model of a vehicle, the surroundings, the weather, the way the road turns,
the way the vehicle ahead is turning, what is coming in my peripheral vision –
something in my vision field has reminded me of the car wreck. The best way to get rid of that bad memory is
to remove it from sight and take a deep breath. Yes, there may even be a
physical response: a shudder or attempting to shake the memory out of my brain
(it doesn’t work, unfortunately), or putting my hands over my eyes. 98% of the
time, I am not closing my eyes because you are scaring me; I will tell you if
you are a scary driver, trust me.
- 3) Certain sounds make me nervous and need to take a deep
breath. Ambulances and fire trucks
are big in this category, especially since I was injured and needed those
services. Sirens trigger a response that
takes me back to the moments of “ouch”, and “I can’t move my legs/arms/neck”.
Also, things like squealing tires and loud noises can make my heart rate jump
to 180. It’s a Pavlov response thing: If the last thing you heard before being
bruised from head to toe was squealing tires and had something large hit you,
that sound will instantly remind you of ouchies again.
- 4) Just like sounds, certain smells can have a bad effect
on me. Squealing tires usually give a burnt rubber smell. I could hardly stand
to be in a parking garage after my highway crash. It’s a signal to my brain to
want to panic. I need to breathe through this situation. The first month after
my 2nd wreck, I dissolved into tears and shook from head to toe at
the sight of emergency vehicles…so really, I’m better than I was.
- 5) This one is hard to explain…accelerations/decelerations
can absolutely make me panic. You know Newton’s first and third laws of
motion, right? That every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain
in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it; and for
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? Yeah, so when a car
pushed me into an at-eye-level semi trailer (all of us traveling at 70ish mph),
I spun out and was sent in the opposite direction, and 3 months later when I was
traveling 40mph downhill, and a 2,000 lb work van hit me head on, I stopped.
VERY quickly, and VERY forcefully, and VERY painfully. The rapid deceleration
(aka, brakes) that you may apply makes my heart want to explode. When you take
off quickly, we are naturally pushed back into the seat a bit, but when you are
tossed around a car and forcefully stopped by seat belts, airbags and steering
wheels, it’s not a cool feeling like it was when you were 5.
- 6) Bad hospital stays make things worse. The first night was a nightmare because of a bad IV not
getting any pain meds to me. The second night, my nightmares became living
monsters because of a bad reaction to muscle relaxers. During that time, it was
hard for me to distinguish between what was real and what was dreams. If you
had to recollect a wreck (that was amplified in the dream because of drugs) every
10 minutes for 6+ hours, you just become naturally jumpy and shaky. It’s just a
fact of life now. When you don’t feel safe in your dreams, it’s hard to feel
safe in real life sometimes (talk about Nightmare on Elm street...)
- 7) Being jostled can also be a trigger for panic. When you are hit from any side in a car, you feel it in
every bone, muscle, tendon, and cell in your body. We know that drunks survive more crashes
because they are loose and limber, whereas sober people tense up and brace
themselves – sustaining more injuries and higher probability of death. Having
an air bag deploy (read: explode) in your face does not tickle. I remember
checking for my front teeth and touching my nose after the airbags because my
face and head hurt so badly. My chest hurt from impact with air bag, steering
wheel, and seatbelt straps, and my knees hurt from collisions with the dash
board. Therefore, sudden turns, stops, and whatever else, still bother me. My
ambulance driver also went over a pair of very rough RR tracks at 40mph…also
not a fun feeling. My gurney was bouncing
and the EMT with me had to hold on to keep upright – He who was whole and
healthy was holding on and then there’s me with bones sticking out, body
bruised & bleeding. Long story short, RR tracks still make me tense up.
When you put all these
factors together over the course of one car ride, sometimes even going through
all of this in a matter of seconds, being in a car can be terrifying. It doesn’t
matter how long ago the accident was, or how much you say you're “over it”,
your body is still reacting to the stimuli around you and trying to avoid the
feelings it felt on Day Zero.
Feelings of guilt crop up
because there is genuine guilt and shame at still feeling scared. I don’t want
to be scared to drive or ride with someone.
I always LOVED the car..LOVED donuts in the snow…LOVED stomach dropping
turns and hills…LOVED carefree country drives. I feel bad about feeling scared,
and feel bad that you may be upset at me for getting scared…
I cannot control the panic
and bile that rises within me when these things happen. My only solution is to
breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe slowly and deeply. I cannot help that
my voice shakes, and trust me when I say I despise the tears that want to
squeeze out. No matter how much I will them away, they come because my body is
re-living what happened – this time without the adrenaline to sedate the nerves
and suppress my senses. These times my feelings are raw and uninhibited, and I
am still learning how to manage them, and how to manipulate them so that I can
enjoy being in a vehicle again. I don’t want to be tense from point A to point
B every time I sit inside one.
No matter how much you sigh;
no matter how many times you tell me to “calm down” or “you’re overreacting”;
no matter how much you think I’m okay and back to normal...I’m not – but I am
learning to be okay again. All I need you to do is try to understand. I don’t expect you to fully comprehend my experience,
just be patient and willing to understand.
One day I will be okay. I’m
better than I was yesterday, and tomorrow I will be better than today.
One day
at a time.
